The Mysterious Mr Quin
The Mysterious Mr Quin is a short story collection by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by William Collins & Sons on 14 April 1930 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence and the US edition at $2.00.
Each chapter or story involves a separate mystery that is solved through the interaction between the characters of Mr Satterthwaite, an elderly socialite, and the eponymous Mr Quin who appears almost magically at the most opportune moments and disappears just as mysteriously.
In her foreword to the collection, Christie states: "Mr Quin, I consider, is an epicure's taste." Her husband Max Mallowan described the stories as "detection written in a fanciful vein, touching on the fairy story, a natural product of Agatha's peculiar imagination." Christie's favourite stories were 'The World's End', 'The Man from the Sea' and 'Harlequin's Lane'.
Characters
Mr Satterthwaite is aged 62 in the first story, in the sixth story he is 69, and in another work 'The Harlequin Tea Set', he is "now of an advanced age". He is first described as "a little bent, dried-up man with a peering face oddly elflike, and an intense and inordinate interest in other people's lives. All his life, so to speak, he had sat in the front row of the stalls watching various dramas of human nature unfold before him."In her foreword, Christie describes Satterthwaite as "he gossip, the looker-on at life, the little man who without ever touching the depths of joy and sorrow himself, recognizes drama when he sees it ".
He is described as "given to old-fashioned expressions" and as "sentimental and Victorian". Like Hercule Poirot, he is habitually "polite". He is a wealthy "gentleman", with a Rolls-Royce driven by a chauffeur named Masters, and a cordon bleu chef. He is known as an art collector, which features prominently in 'The Dead Harlequin'. He hires a box at the Royal Opera House on Tuesdays and Fridays during the season. He is fond of the company of the social elite: "In his way, a harmless, gentlemanly, old-fashioned way, Mr. Satterthwaite was a snob."
After their first encounter, Satterthwaite greets Quin warmly whenever he meets him and refers to him as "my dear friend".
Mr Harley Quin is first described as "tall and slender a thin dark man" with a "pleasant level voice". Often in the stories, through some trick of the light, he appears to be momentarily "dressed in every colour of the rainbow" and his face seems to be masked, alluding to the traditional harlequin motley and mask. Rather than solving mysteries directly, Mr Quin guides others to make deductions: Satterthwaite describes Quin as a "catalyst". Mr Quin frequents Arlecchino restaurant in Soho and a country inn called The Bells and Motley.
Christie, in her foreword, describes Mr Quin as "not quite human and yet concerned with the affairs of human beings and particularly of lovers. He is also an advocate for the dead."
As the stories progress, Christie hints more strongly at Quin's supernatural nature. In 'The Sign in the Sky', Satterthwaite refers to Quin as "a man of magic". In 'The Man From The Sea', Quin explains that he appeared because he had a "commission to perform" as an "advocate for the dead". In 'The Bird with the Broken Wing', a character who meets Quin describes him as like a "lost soul". In 'The Dead Harlequin', when someone asks Quin why he intervened after witnessing a murder many years earlier, Quin replies: "So that the dead may rest in peace". In the final story of the collection, a character says "Harlequin is only a myth, an invisible presence. Unless his name is — Death!"
Plot summaries
The Coming of Mr Quin
It is New Year's Eve and a house party is taking place at Royston, the country house of Tom Evesham and his wife, Lady Laura. Among the guests are Mr Satterthwaite, Sir Richard Conway and Alex Portal and his Australian wife of two years, Eleanor. Satterthwaite finds her intriguing on many counts, especially why a blonde would dye her hair dark when the reverse is more common. After the clocks strike midnight, the older members among the guests mention Derek Capel, the previous owner of Royston, who committed suicide ten years previously, seemingly without reason. Tom Evesham stops this conversation and a few minutes later the women retire to bed.Left to their whisky and the fire, the men restart the conversation regarding Capel. There is a sudden knock on the door. It is a stranger; the lights through the stained glass above the door cast a multi-coloured look over his motoring clothes. Mr Harley Quin asks for shelter while his chauffeur repairs his broken-down car. He knows this part of the world and knew Derek Capel, and he skilfully steers the conversation round to the question of why Capel should suddenly take his own life. Satterthwaite feels that Quin's appearance on this night is no accident. As the discussion continues, Satterthwaite spots Eleanor Portal crouched down in the darkness at the top of the stairs listening in.
Capel told the guests on the night of his death that he was about to be engaged. They assumed that it was to Marjorie Dilke. His secretiveness about the engagement makes Conway wonder if the engagement was to someone else, such as a married woman. All agree that Capel's manner that night was like a man who had won a large gamble and was defying the odds, yet ten minutes later he shot himself. A late post of letters and newspapers arrived, the first for several days in the snow-bound countryside, but Capel had not opened any of the letters. A policeman was at the house, returning one of Capel's dogs that had strayed. He was in the kitchen when the shot was fired. Quin asks them to place the exact date, possibly by reference to some event in the news, and the men remember it was the time of the Appleton murder trial. Mr Appleton was an old man who mistreated his far younger wife, and Capel was a friend of theirs. Appleton died by strychnine poisoning but the poison was only found after the body had been exhumed. His wife, who had smashed a decanter of port from which her husband had drunk – perhaps to destroy the evidence – had been put on trial and found not guilty, but had then left the country because of the scandal.
Quin takes the men through the sequence of events: Capel saw the paragraph in the newspaper reporting that the exhumation order had been given; then he saw a policeman approaching his house. Not knowing that this visit was about the missing dog, he assumed that he was to be arrested, and so shot himself. His audience is stunned at the accusation that Capel was a murderer, objecting that he was not at the Appleton home on the day of the death; but Quin points out that strychnine is not soluble and would collect at the bottom of the decanter if placed there a week before. Why did Mrs Appleton smash the decanter? At Quin's prompting, Satterthwaite theorises it was to protect Capel, not to cover her own guilty tracks. Mr Quin leaves the house. Eleanor Portal follows him down the drive to say thank you, and then she and her husband are reconciled. Eleanor is the former Mrs Appleton. Capel's suicide left her unable to clear her name totally, until Quin's appearance.
The Shadow on the Glass
Mr Satterthwaite is a guest for a week at a house party held by Mr and Mrs Unkerton at their home, Greenway's House. Mr Richard Scott, there with his new wife Moira, is the best friend of another guest, Major John Porter. Both men are big-game hunters. Mrs Iris Staverton arrives. Rumour says she had a relationship in Africa with Richard Scott. Also present is Lady Cynthia Drage, a gossipy society woman, and the popular, young Captain Jimmy Allenson, and whom Lady Cynthia met in Egypt the previous year – where the Scotts met and married.The house is said to be haunted by the ghost of a cavalier who was killed by his wife's roundhead lover. The two fled the house but, looking back, saw the image of the cavalier looking at them from an upstairs window. The glass has been replaced many times but the image always returns on the new pane. The Scotts stay in this room, with the offending window panelled over. Satterthwaite shows this window to Major Porter from a grassy knoll some distance from the house where the image is clear. Major Porter confides to Satterthwaite that Mrs Staverton ought not to have come to the party.
They overhear Mrs Staverton telling Richard Scott that he will be sorry, and that jealousy can drive a man to murder. That evening, Mrs Unkerton tells Satterthwaite that she has sent for a glazier to replace the haunted pane of glass. Satterthwaite realises that she senses the tension in the house. The next evening, Satterthwaite and Porter retrace their steps in the dusk to the grassy knoll and conclude that the glass is not yet replaced, as the cavalier's image is still there.
Returning, they hear two gunshots, and find Mrs Staverton at the privy garden holding a gun and two dead people on the ground – Captain Allenson, shot in the chest, and Mrs Scott, shot in the back. Mrs Staverton says that she arrived in the garden and picked up the discarded gun. While the police are fetched, Satterthwaite notices a spot of blood on the earlobe of Mrs Scott and sees that one of her earrings has been torn away.
The situation looks bad for Mrs Staverton in the eyes of the police. In the middle of the enquiry, Mr Quin arrives. Satterthwaite describes his ability to help people see problems from new angles. Prompted by Quin, Satterthwaite points out the torn earlobe, which leads to a new analysis of the gunshots. The first bullet passed through Moira into Allenson, in an embrace. The second bullet hit her ear. The Scotts met in Cairo the previous winter when Allenson was there – were Mrs Scott and Allenson lovers?
Unkerton reveals that the glazier did visit that morning. Next to the window, they find a small feather that matches one of Mrs Scott's hats. Quin describes the crime – Richard Scott pulled the movable panel back, knowing the house well, and then saw his wife and her lover in the garden. He posed like the storied cavalier, donning his wife's hat to complete the profile. He shot the two from the window and then threw the pistol onto the grass below. He was happy to let Mrs Staverton take the blame. Contrary to rumour, she fell for Porter in Africa, not Scott. Porter did not realise this, and Quin suggests he comfort the wrongly accused lady.